Piglia, Ricardo

(1941– )

   Argentine novelist, essayist, literary critic, and screenwriter. Born in Androgué (Buenos Aires), Piglia spent much of his youth in Mar del Plata, where he attended the Universidad de la Plata. In his twenties he worked for several Argentine editorial houses. His first published collection of short stories, La invasion (1967), was awarded the prestigious Casa de las Américas prize in Havana, Cuba. After the military coup in Argentina in 1976, Piglia spent several periods abroad as visiting professor at various U.S. universities. In 1980 he published his first novel, Respiración artificial, hailed as one of the most representative narratives of the new Argentine fiction in the last decades of the 20th century. The theme of political repression that is obliquely touched on in the first novel is openly addressed in La ciudad ausente (1992). Shortly after, Piglia adapted La ciudad ausente for the opera, with a musical score by Gerardo Gandini. The work had its premiere in the famed Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires during the season of 1995.

   A prolific literary critic, Piglia has published several studies on Argentine writers as well as edited literary compilations. During the 1960s he edited the Serie Negra series, which introduced to Argentine readers authors such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. On several occasions Piglia has written for the screen. In 1992 he collaborated with Brazilian director Hector Babenco in the script for Corazón iluminado, based on boyhood memories the two shared of the seaside resort town of Mar del Plata, where the Argentine-born Babenco lived until his family moved to São Paulo, Brazil. In addition, Piglia collaborated in the script for Comodines, by Argentine director Jorge Nisco, one of Argentina’s box-office successes in 1997, and La sonámbula (1998), by Argentine director Fernando Spiner. He has also adapted works by Julio Cortázar and Juan Carlos Onetti for the screen.

   In 1990 Piglia returned to Buenos Aires, where he still resides. His latest novel, Plata quemada, inspired by an actual police case in Buenos Aires, became a best seller in Argentina and received the Premio Planeta as the best novel of the year. In 1999 he published a compilation of brief narratives entitled Formas breves. His works have been translated into several languages, and his latest works have been published simultaneously in U.S. and Brazilian editions. Piglia alternates his duties as professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires with a visiting professorship at Princeton University in New Jersey.